


As Long As You're Alive and Care

by Zee (orphan_account)



Series: Weekenders [5]
Category: Bandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-13
Updated: 2007-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:07:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard plows right into him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Long As You're Alive and Care

Pete stands up, brushing burrs from the bush off of his arms. “This is pointless,” he says, scowling at the offending bush, and Patrick swings the flashlight from over where he’s searching to light on Pete. “There’s nothing here.”

“We haven’t searched the whole park yet. Don’t whine.” Patrick moves the flashlight so that it’s shining directly into Pete’s eyes, and Pete flinches and snarls. He hears Patrick laugh softly, and flips him off.

“I’m not whining. I’m just saying that we’ve been here forever, we haven’t found any signs of activity and we don’t even know what signs we’re looking for to begin with! I mean, fuck, who knows what traces a vampire living in a tree leaves. We haven’t found any bodies. What does Brian expect, that we’ll come across wrappers from blood packets littered on the ground or something?”

Patrick swings the flashlight back away to illuminate the area he’s searching. Pete’s eyes adjust to the dark immediately, and everything is bright enough. “Brian thinks it’s really important that we find this runaway gang,” Patrick says, as if Pete never heard the details of their little assignment. “If they split with Gabe, they might have information we can use and we just might be able to get it from them. If they were squatting here, there’s got to be _some_ kind of sign.” 

“There doesn’t. There really, really doesn’t, I mean come on, if they’re hiding from Gabe? They won’t—“

“Brian thinks you might be able to get a sense of how long ago they were here or something like that.”

Pete shuts his mouth. He glares down at the ground, rubbing at the dry brown grass and dirt with his shoe. “Right,” he mutters. “I’ll just use my keen spider sense to _feeel_ whether any of ‘my kind’ have been here.” Louder, he calls out, “Tell Brian I’m not a fucking bloodhound.”

“Tell him yourself. Besides, you _do_ have senses different from any of ours.” His voice fades off as he ventures further into the park, the flashlight’s light bounding away. 

“So, fellow vampires,” Pete says to the empty trees in front of him, putting his hands on his hips. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. Let’s hang. Or, hmm, maybe I’m supposed to howl to hook up with other creatures of the night. I’ve heard that’s how werewolves do it.” 

“Stop narrating to yourself,” Patrick says, voice already distant. 

Pete walks down to the edge of the pathetic, polluted little trickle of creak, half-heartedly patting down trees for some kind of clue. He can smell plenty around here, but no vampires. 

Until. Wait. He can smell _that._

He finds the source of the outhouse smell and yells for Patrick. Patrick shines a spotlight on the mound in the park, looking thoughtful.

"So you can smell it?"

"Yeah."

"And uh. It's not.... human waste?"

"Right."

"Can you tell, um. How, uh--"

"It's been there for a week, maybe." Pete is holding his nose. "I think. I'm not, like. An expert."

"Hm." Patrick flicks the flashlight away, up at the trees. Pete tries not to gag at the smell; Patrick, apparently, can't smell a thing. 

"This is really gross," Patrick says conversationally.

"I hate my entire life," Pete replies.

Brian stares when they tell him, incredulous. " _That's_ what you found? Their waste? They--they _buried_ it?"

"They dug the same kind of latrine my family always did on camping trips," Pete says. "It was the only trace we could find."

"And you sniffed it out?" Joe says. "Wow, uh. Gross, dude."

"No shit," Pete snaps, and winces at his choice of words.

"Okay," Brian says, rubbing absently at his cheek. "Okay, so they were there a week ago. That's--I can work with that." He's already typing, a freaky gleam in his eye, and Pete and Joe trade smirks. In the months since they got here, Joe has somehow ended up as Brian's assistant and research buddy, something that Joe is flattered and baffled by and that Pete finds hilarious.

Pete hangs out in the office, watching Joe peer over Brian's shoulder at various computer screens and listening to Patrick and Frank debate Black Flag versus The Descendants, chiming in every once in a while on both sides. He can feel the sun coming up, the tired itch in his skin that starts dragging him to bed more and more insistently the closer dawn gets. He stands up and stretches, waves goodnight to everyone hanging out, and yanks Patrick's hat to the side on his way out, dodging as Patrick angrily tries to slap him away.

When he gets to the empty classroom he's using as his bedroom, Gerard is sitting cross-legged out in the hall next to the doorway, taking a swig from a flask. Gerard's been making one of his team stand watch outside Pete's door every night since they first got to Jersey, in case Pete goes homicidal and bloodthirsty in the night or something. Gerard's guys seem to think it's mostly pointless, but they take the shifts anyway; Pete thinks it's pretty whatever. 

“Great,” Pete says. “It’s your turn to babysit me. I’ve been looking forward to this all night, you know that?”

Gerard puts his flask away without smiling. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

Pete dawdles in the doorway. "So some drunk guy is really gonna stop me from going out and sucking all your guys' blood, huh?"

Gerard's eyes go childishly wide and he bites his lip, mock-worried. "I hadn't *thought* about that. You wanna test my reflexes?"

The one thing about Gerard that creeps Pete out the most (one thing out of a list that just keeps on growing) is the edge in his voice at all times. Even when he's talking to people aside from Pete, even when he's laughing softly in Frank's ear, it's... there's a harshness. A quality that never lets Pete forget that Gerard would as soon kill Pete as look at him.

What's even creepier is that Pete knows that's actually one of Gerard's virtues.

"Maybe some other time," Pete says, and goes to bed. He can hear Gerard's breathing, and it never slows down into a sleep pattern; he can smell the alcohol through the night, but Gerard's scent doesn't change, either. Pete thinks Gerard only lets himself sleep every few days. 

Pete rarely remembers his dreams, but lately he's been waking up with his heart racing and his dick hard with a distant feeling of fingers all over him. It makes him shake slightly to get up and dread going to sleep; it's never a good kind of turned-on. It's the feeling he learned from William.

Pete hears Gerard start singing softly to himself. He does that sometimes--it must not occur to him that Pete can hear, because Pete is certain it's not something he's *supposed* to hear. Gerard has a pretty decent voice, and usually he sings something from Queen, but tonight it's something Pete doesn't recognize. The singing definitely goes on Pete's list of things that creep him out about the guy.

Pete turns over on his stomach and closes his eyes, tries to block it out.

***

Gerard just nods to Pete, then turns around to walk back to his own room when Pete walks out of his room that evening. The others that stand guard are always asleep when he comes out, but Gerard never is, going back to Pete's theory that he doesn't actually need to sleep. Maybe he got his sleep glands removed for the cause, or something. Maybe he's as inhuman as Pete is.

He can already hear the whirr of the blender as he pushes open the door to their main office. Patrick has it set up on a little table next to Brian's info center, instead of in the cafeteria where they get the rest of their food, and there's a cute little frown of concentration on his face as he adds ingredients and hits the button to make it go.

"You didn't have to do it for me," Pete says. He's staring at the ground because the hunger is always sharpest right when he wakes up, and he doesn't want to catch himself zoning out at anyone's neck. Gerard would probably put him on a leash like a disobedient dog if he started that.

Patrick shrugs. "I don't mind." He finishes, eyeing the concoction before handing it to Pete, who gulps it down gratefully. It's strange, it tastes nothing like blood, and yet. He wipes his mouth when he's finished and meets Patrick's eyes and smiles gratefully.

"It puts kind of a new spin on the whole 'inhuman till I've had my coffee' thing," Bob says, looking thoughtfully at the blender. 

"Better than Starbucks," Pete says, smacking his lips and grinning. He knows it's creepy when he does that, knows it exposes his fangs, and Bob shudders predictably.

Patrol that night is the four of them, just like back in Chicago, and that wasn't long enough ago that Pete should be feeling nostalgic; and it wasn't good times all the time, either, no matter how wistful Pete's thoughts get. But at least it was just them, his band in a different context, the same ties Pete has felt since Patrick and Joe were still in high school. At least they weren't in someone else's territory, playing by someone else's rules, trying to fit their old patterns into another gang's completely different slot. At least their unofficial leader wasn't a crazy unwashed alcoholic and a deeply unpleasant person.

"You're brooding again," Patrick says, nudging Pete's side as they take care of three vampires that had been roaming one of the old city libraries.

"I am in a constant state of brooding," Pete says. "Geez, I thought you'd be used to it by now."

Patrick nudges him again, then takes Pete's elbow. "Gerard getting to you again?"

"Fuck off, you're not psychic."

"No, I'm just right all the time," Patrick says, grinning, and Pete sticks his tongue out childishly.

"He just always makes such a fucking _point_ when it's his turn to 'stand guard' or whatever," Pete says. "Like, I don't know. Like he wants to make sure I know that he's _watching me_ or something. He's like a walking cliché."

"I'll be kind and not point out the irony in you calling someone else that," Patrick says. "You know he wouldn't be that bad if you didn't bait him all the time."

"He doesn't even think of me as human! Shut up, I know I'm not, that's not the point," Pete adds when Patrick opens his mouth to state the obvious.

"I'm not saying he's right to treat you like a walking time bomb, but do you remember how you would barely even let us near you those first few weeks after you came back? You thought you were a danger to everyone around you, and we kind of agreed. We all had to get used to your thing. Gerard will get used to it eventually."

"I'm not holding my breath until he does," Pete says. Patrick kindly doesn't point out that Pete has no breath to hold in the first place.

November passes quickly, and it's strange to see signs of winter but to be unable to feel the drop in temperature himself. He's always hated the cold, but he finds that he wants to feel the difference between New Jersey and Chicago winters, wants to be able to compare. He watches the last of the leaves fall instead, going back to the park he and Patrick had to explore in his free time, as it's one of the only places around that even has trees.

Things are mostly quiet and boring on the home-front. Brian is obsessed with the idea of tracking down the gang of escapees from Gabe's clan; they've been completely unsuccessful in finding anything anywhere else that might give them enough of an edge to attack Gabe and Maja's enclave, so Brian is throwing himself after anything that could lead to information. He sends Pete off on wild goose chases, making him look for the gang in the ruins of abandoned highways, in old malls, in the next town over, and Pete almost always finds traces, signs that they've just left.

He doesn't even realize that Christmas is coming up until Ray and Frank reveal their presents to the group on Christmas Eve. "And to all a good night, motherfuckers," Frank says, grinning as he opens up the back of the van to reveal three guitars, one acoustic and one bass, several hand drums, and a small keyboard. 

"How--" Patrick says, his eyes wide as the rest of them whoop and yell and grab instruments, slapping Frank and Ray on the back.

"We found them in the gutter one night on patrol," Ray says, laughing as Joe hugs him, burying his face in Ray's neck. "Someone must have just dumped them when they decided to run for it. They were all pretty beat up, but we've managed to fix them up pretty nice."

"Thank you," Pete says, and it comes out embarrassingly heartfelt as he takes in the look on Patrick's face as he reaches out to touch the guitar Frank is already jamming on. Bob kisses Frank's cheek.

They scavenge several six-packs for the night and light a bonfire in the middle of the school soccer field to celebrate. It's the first time Pete has touched a bass since he got turned, and it's scary how good it feels to be playing with Joe and Patrick again, even though after so much lost time his skills are pretty clumsy. A couple of times he looks up and sees Gerard looking at him, frowning--no, looking at his hands, looking at him playing. Pete supposes that it must be a surprise for him that a monster can play bass, even badly.

They're all getting rowdy, drunk and giddy on something good happening. "Fuck!" Frank bellows, punching his fist in the air. He follows this by reaching his other arm back and throwing his beer can, hurtling it across the soccer field. His momentum makes him stumble and he just laughs, keeps yelling up at the sky. Gerard laughs, too, their distinct voices vying against each other, and when they move for a clumsy hug their foreheads knock together.

"We made it this far," Patrick says, his voice sounding just like Frank's had, albeit at a softer volume. "Can you seriously--I mean, we're a bunch of stupid punk kids, and we've been fighting for our lives and actually, you know, winning, kinda." Patrick's cheeks are flushed as he drains his own beer, tipping his head back with a soppy smile on his face. Pete grins back at him, grabbing Patrick's empty can and throwing it in the same direction as Frank's.

"We are totally kinda winning," he agrees, taking his own drink. Consensus is divided over whether or not vampires can get drunk, but Pete is doing his best. Just for the hell of it, he leans forward to pour a little into the bonfire, a celebratory sacrifice of booze. Or something like that, something important and special and significant, a neon sign to himself and the world that they're still here and still fighting, all of them.

"Trying to put it out?" that's Gerard next to him, sudden and out of nowhere. Pete didn't hear him or smell him come up; Patrick is gone, he must have wandered off somewhere. Gerard's stare makes Pete's neck tense up, but for once Gerard doesn't sound like a bad-ass motherfucker who wants to knit a sweater out of Pete's entrails. Pete has a feeling that might even have been a joke he was trying to make, like: 'Ha, I'm being faux-suspicious of you doing something innocent because of the way I'm always suspicious of you. But I'm not this instant! Funny, right?' It might have come off better if Gerard were more sober.

"Fire is the doom of my kind," Pete says, pulling a grimace and stepping dramatically away from the fire, throwing his hands up protectively in front of his face. "Graargh!"

Gerard's eyes go wide and his face twists for a second, a painful expression that makes Pete freeze. But then Gerard's gaze drops down and he turns his head away from Pete to glance out at the field, saying "Right" in an even tone.

They stand in silence for a while, Pete sipping more of his drink and not sure what the point of this is, what Gerard is trying to prove. Then Gerard says, "Why are you doing this? Why are you invested, why are you risking your life to hunt them, why--I mean, you don't have a stake in this. They don't want to eat you."

For a moment Pete is so offended he can't even speak. When he opens his mouth, his voice comes out thin and shaking. "Are you fucking _kidding_ me? It's not enough that they've gone after my friends, the human species, the people I love? Fuck you, you don't know what I've seen of them, you don't even know what they're really like, you don't know a god damn fucking thing." 

"You seem to hate them so much," Gerard says, unphased by Pete's fury. "You seem as invested as any of us. Why bother, when you could just walk away from the fight on either end?"

Pete spits at Gerard's face. Gerard's reflexes aren't slowed by the alcohol, and he instantly grabs Pete, yanking him in by his shirt and almost off of his feet. Gerard is holding Pete like he's about to shove him away or hit him, his face wild with hate. Pete leans in fast to put his mouth above Gerard's neck, his teeth almost grazing the skin and poised to bite, and Gerard lets him go and shoves him away with a yell as Pete laughs.

The others don't notice; they've gotten into a game that seems to involve running around and chasing each other and knocking each other to the ground, spread across the high school field. Gerard is panting and keeping his distance from Pete now, his hands clenched into fists.

"You distrust me _more_ because I'm fighting on your side," Pete says, realizing it suddenly. "You really--damn, you think I'm more fucked up than other vampires."

Gerard shrugs and wipes Pete's spittle from his cheek. "You've said yourself you're unnatural."

"Unnatural because I'm more human than vampire," Pete says. "You don't know how much I wish that wasn't the case sometimes, especially after I came back to Patrick and the others. It would be so much easier to just... give in and live like the rest of them do."

That actually makes Gerard smile, the creepy fuck. "So you're saying that I'm right to be so paranoid around you?"

Pete meets his eyes. "Yeah. Guess I am."

There's a ringing in his ears that might be inebriation--it's been so long that he doesn't really remember the feeling. He takes a step forward and doesn't know why. Gerard walks away to get another drink.

Patrick catches him up in the backwards drunken game of tag, and Pete finds out that when you've got Frank pinned to the ground in the grass he fights dirty, all sharp elbows and teeth and a knee to Pete's groin, never mind that it's a fucking game. Pete lies groaning on the ground and rolls onto his stomach, defeated with the ringing still in his ears. He can see the fire flicker out of the corner of his eye, close. Warm if he could feel it.

"Fuck!" he hears Gerard yell, and then a foot hits his side dully and Gerard stumbles, falling almost into the fire. Pete reaches up, grabs the back of Gerard's jacket, his clumsy brain thinking to pull him back even though Gerard has already stopped himself from meeting flame-y death when Pete grabs him. 

Gerard whirls around to stare at Pete, then bends down and shoves at Pete's shoulders, urging him to roll over. "Up." Gerard tugs him up, pushes him belligerently to his feet. "Up, come on!"

"I'm motherfucking up!" Pete stares at Gerard, bewildered, before Gerard says,

" _Tag._ Duh."

Oh. Pete takes off running, long parched grass swishing at his ankels as flees from Gerard, who's laughing and yelling behind him. Gerard is fast, but Pete is superhuman. Pete also doesn't care about escaping, and he slows when the ringing gets louder and Gerard plows right into him.

They roll and Pete can smell everything Gerard is, the booze, the sweat, the fear and anger and the smoke from the fire and the flesh and blood and the humanity. Gerard's hands are on Pete and they scuffle pressed close to each other. Gerard winds up on top and Pete smells the attraction instantly when Gerard gets slightly turned on, half a second before Gerard's lips hit his mouth.

Pete wraps his arms around Gerard and hitches his leg over Gerard's hip and kisses back. Gerard's mouth is insistent and strong and his tongue is in Pete's mouth, and his throaty moan when Pete kisses back just as hard makes something behind Pete's teeth sing and buzz.

When Gerard breaks the kiss it's to kneel and then to stand, Pete stumbling up after him. They collide again, Gerard's hand cupping the back of Pete's head and neck roughly, biting at his lower lip. Pete feels caught in a tornado or earthquake or another natural (human) disaster, Gerard yanking him away from the fire and the others and into the school, Gerard throwing him against the wall and kissing him in a way that makes Pete feel like the last year never happened--like his world revolves around documenting feelings and passions for a song. Like he should be taking notes to create something out of this.

"Come on," Gerard pants against Pete's jaw, like Pete might not. "Come _on._ "

"Yeah," Pete grunts when Gerard reaches down to squeeze his dick through his pants. "Okay--okay, Gerard, okay," and Gerard bites Pete's earlobe, presses his face into Pete's neck and hair, licks at Pete's collarbone and breathes frenzied against Pete's throat. Pete pushes hard up into his hand.

"Let's go," Pete says at the same time that Gerard says "Come on" again. Gerard leans back to look Pete in the eye, his lips red and puffy and his eyes completely unfocused. For a second Pete feels guilty because he's the one that's supposed to be in his right mind, but Gerard's mouth is slightly open and he leans in to kiss Pete firmly before pulling back, grabbing Pete's arm and dragging him quickly into the empty classroom that Gerard sleeps in. Pete doesn't give a fuck if this is a bad idea (this is an amazingly shitty idea, like an _amazingly_ shitty idea) and he's not going to stop either of them. He's not going to control himself.

Gerard closes the door behind them and yanks his jacket off, his shirt, his pants. Naked in front of Pete and pushing Pete back towards and onto the bed, and Pete once again feels caught up in something invincible. Gerard shoves his hand down the front of Pete's pants and Pete yells, bucking up and scrambling to remove his own clothes. He ends up on his stomach, stretched out and wanting it and feeling crazy when Gerard pushes in.

When he wakes up, it's the next day. Something in his body can feel the fact of the sun even though there's no sunlight getting into the room, and it makes Pete feel sluggish and confused, his world on mute. He rolls over into something sticky, and when he glances over he can see Gerard's hair spread across the pillow. The scent of sex is almost overpowering. Pete realizes dimly that this is the first night he's spent in Jersey without a vampire hunter standing guard to kill him if he wants a midnight snack.

Pete rolls over to stare up at the ceiling and wonders if Gerard will start grabbing for a pointy piece of wood when he wakes up. He should possibly make a run for it.

Gerard wakes up with a snort and a yawn, his eyes blinking slowly open. He sees Pete and immediately scrambles back, legs tangling comically in the sheets and his mouth gaping in horror. His eyes are bloodshot, and Pete imagines he's fighting some impressive hair of the dog.

"Oh my fuck," Gerard says. "Oh my shitting fuck jesus _god._ "

Pete is afraid to say the wrong thing, so he doesn't say anything at all. He thinks about grabbing the sheets back, because Gerard yanking them away (he's now holding them up to his chin, as if to protect his virtue) has completely exposed him. Pete scratches his thigh where it itches.

"Fucking hell," Gerard says, apparently going through his limited curse word vocabulary. "What the fuck did we."

"Please don't ask that like you don't remember," Pete says, rolling his eyes.

"Go to hell, vampire," Gerard spits, and Pete cracks up. 

"Oh my god," he says, wheezing out laughter. "Are you for _real?_ "

Gerard's face darkens, but he doesn't say anything else while Pete finishes laughing, as if realizing how ridiculous he sounded. "This is not happening again," he says firmly. "We should really both forget that it happened in the first place."

"Well, yeah." Pete shrugs and stands, starts hunting around for his clothes. His body isn't sore at all, which, huh; side effect of being supernatural, probably. "I had assumed that."

"As long as we're on the same page," Gerard says suspiciously.

"We're on the same fucking _sentence_ ," Pete says. "Trust me on that." 

He's starting to get a little hungry. He needs his bloodlust-be-gone milkshake. He can hear Gerard's heart beating loud and indignant across the room.

"Right," Gerard says, getting out of bed and pulling on his clothes, too, every movement short and jerky. He doesn't say anything else, and Pete leaves.

The conversation dies as soon as Pete enters the principal's office. Everyone but Ray is up and present, and Brian coughs loudly and goes back to furious typing after they all glance at Pete for a beat. Joe looks like he's trying to hold back a giggle.

"Morning," Pete mutters to Patrick as he shuffles over to the blender table, shoving ingredients in. Patrick looks at him with raised eyebrows, and Pete is suddenly very aware that he has neither showered nor made any attempt to fight back bedhead. 

"I think it was Frank's turn to guard your room last night," Patrick says, the noise of the blender covering his voice to keep their conversation private. "He said you never showed up?"

No shit, but of course Patrick is going to make Pete fucking say it. Pete glares at him. "It's not going to happen again. Nothing to worry about."

"What's not going to happen again?" Patrick says, and Pete sincerely hates him for a second.

"We're not going to sleep together again," Pete snaps loudly as the noise of the blender dies. 

Everyone's staring at him again. Pete grimly drinks his breakfast.

Gerard is still hiding in his room when the sun goes down and Pete heads out with Patrick. They don't go anywhere, there's no patrol because it's Christmas and everyone is hungover. Pete just wants to drive. They end up at the same sketchy, dead park that they had to find traces of vampire activity in, back in October.

"Pete, he's an addict," Patrick says as soon as they start walking. "He's unbalanced and he's been doing this for years and he really, really hates anything with sharp-ish teeth."

"And he hates me even more than most," Pete adds. "I'm not an idiot, thanks."

"Hard to tell from your behavior," Patrick says, and Pete knows he's scowling without looking back. "Really, I know you have a penchant for people who like to yell at you, but he's constantly looking for an excuse to stake you!"

"He didn't last night," Pete says, before he can stop himself, and Patrick stops walking. Pete turns around to look at him, adding hastily "But look, I told you it's never going to happen again. Like _really_ never going to happen again. Like, he's probably spent the hours since I left his room scrubbing his body down with bleach."

"But why'd you get together in the first place?" Patrick looks nothing but confused.

Pete shrugs. "He was drunk out of his fucking mind. I just went with it." It's not the truth, not exactly. Pete doesn't know what he was thinking, but he didn't just go with it. Patrick opens his mouth to ask Pete why he's lying, and Pete turns back around to keep walking. 

Pete isn't quite sure what to expect when he heads to his room to sleep as the sun comes up, but sure enough, Bob is sitting outside his door, looking cranky. Frank and Bob are always in bad moods when they have to spend the night guarding Pete; they seem to look at it as a waste of time designed to cut down on the number of nights they get to spend together.

"Even more fucking pointless as usual, considering you didn't try to hurt anyone _last night,_ " Bob snaps when Pete says hi. Pete quickly retreats into his room.

Around midday he snaps awake, hearing footsteps and a new heartbeat in the hall. Gerard's scent is right outside his door; Bob's breathing has slowed down--he's asleep. Gerard isn't moving.

Pete lies on his mattress, staring up at the classroom ceiling. He isn't hard; he doesn't think he woke up from that kind of dream. He hears a slight stutter in Gerard's breath, a movement he can't recognize, and then the footsteps pad away.

***

Pete misses Chicago. He misses daily reminders of why William needs to die, misses news about friends and the constant, clear reason to fight. Here he just has disturbing dreams and the ghost of William's voice and faces of vampires who mean nothing to him aside from needing to die. Jersey is beginning to make him feel aimless and adrift, getting locked up every night and trying to be more invested in a fight that isn't really his and needing news from home. 

Pete still thinks of William as much, but with no physical reminder the pictures in his mind shift like wisps of clouds, and he finds that his already dim memory of William's basement is becoming even more shapeless. He's beginning to forget and it terrifies him--makes him obsess over William even more.

Gerard doesn't help. He sticks to his word of forgetting that the night ever happened: he treats Pete exactly as he did before--he's not even nastier or more distrusting, and sometimes Pete catches himself wondering if it *did* really happen. If he were to go out of his way to hate Pete now, it would at least give him some drama and serve as an anchor. Instead, whenever he looks into Gerard's eyes, there doesn't seem to be anything for Pete there. Not that he looks into Gerard's eyes often or at all. 

Pete knows Patrick is concerned, and he appreciates the concern as much as he appreciates Patrick being quiet about it, not pressuring Pete into talking about anything. Pete doesn't really know how to show his gratitude, never has known, and he settles for touching Patrick as much as he can, squeezing his hand or hugging him or resting his cheek against Patrick's shoulder. It makes Patrick smile, at least. Pete is positive he's just imagining the couple of times he thought he saw Gerard's gaze lingering on them post-hug.

They ring in the New Year by killing vampires, cheering and yelling when they crash a nest and, after they've gone through most of them, Frank looks at his watch and announces that it's midnight. Then they go back to the school, light another bonfire and drink; Gerard pukes three times, and Frank ends up propping him up and pouring glass of water after glass of water down his throat while Gerard slurs nonsensically about how they need to keep him awake to ward off a concussion.

"Keep me up," he says, head lolling to the side as he meets Pete's eyes. "Keep me.... right, Pete?"

Pete could probably count on one hand the number of times Gerard has actually called him by his name. Actually, he can't really remember any other time, so this might be the first. Pete stares, as tipsy as it's possible for him to get, and Gerard turns his head again to keep babbling at Frank.

"No concussions, Gerard," Pete says, and Gerard turns his face to him again, his eyes wide open. "Don't worry." Frank glances at Pete, too, and Pete can't read his expression in the dark.

Later that week, he wakes up in the middle of the night with Gerard's scent lingering outside his bedroom door again, Ray asleep and snoring at his post. Pete gets quietly out of bed and goes to the door, opens it, thinking of confronting Gerard or sneering at him or just telling him to get some sleep. But Gerard is already away down the hall when Pete sticks his head out, and he turns over his shoulder to glance back at Pete once before disappearing around the corner. Pete doesn't go after him.

***

All nine of them end up in the fight, and they're still outnumbered. Neither Gabe nor Maja nor anyone close to them is in the attacking group, but it doesn't matter: they don't have to send anyone important, all of their pawns are doing the job plenty well.

The vampires have been informed about the group, and Pete gets bombed by five of them immediately. He's so wrapped up in fighting them off that there's no room in his mind to worry about anyone else, it's all just dodging and blocking and throwing punches and stabbing when he sees an opening--

Pete hears three shots, and two hit him in the chest. The pain rips through him and everythin goes fuzzy and he's dimly aware of blood spurting from his wounds as he drops to his knees, the stake dropping from his hand. Blood bubbles up to the back of his mouth and he coughs on it, gets it up his nose, all over his chin. He swears and doesn't recognize the grated sound of his own voice.

He hears someone else yelling, and it sounds far away. He's faceplanted on the ground but the yelling is closer, the screaming, and he hears the vampire that shot him screech and knows that it's dead. He sees the gun clatter to the ground, firing off shots that seem to hit nothing with a bang. The image makes him chuckle a little bit, but fuck, that _hurts,_ so he stops.

Someone's grabbing his shoulders and that hurts, too, everything hurts, and Pete groans, tries to struggle and twist in their grip. The someone gives a surprised cry, their hold tightening, and Pete realizes who it is just before Gerard kisses him.

Pete reacts automatically, pulling Gerard's head down and kissing back because he's thirsty and he needs this, needs it sudden and absolute, needs it like he remembers needing air. With his tongue in Pete's mouth Gerard seems to be giving him everything, and Pete is greedy. He takes it all.

When they pull apart, Pete can't hold back a gasp of pain. "Oh my god," Gerard says, breathing hard. "Oh my god, you're _alive_ \--" he stares incredulously at the sucking wounds in Pete's chest. 

"Not wood, remember?" Pete says through gritted teeth. 

Gerard opens his mouth and then shuts it. "Oh," he says. "Right. Fuck, so two to the chest and you're just going to be fine?"

"Uh, it fucking hurts," Pete says. There is _lead_ in his _breastbone._

"I'm getting you out of here," Gerard says, picking Pete up in what he probably thinks is a gentle, un-painful way. A wave of agony hits Pete from the already healing holes, and he passes out.

He wakes up in the front seat of Dirty's car as the tires scream to a stop and Gerard turns off the ignition. He feels Gerard help him out of the car, and he can already feel himself getting stronger, a buzzing feeling in his veins as skin heels. There's a popping sound, and Pete looks down to see the bullet that had been buried in his gut fall to the ground.

"That's disgusting," Pete mutters, and Gerard makes a noise of agreement before dragging Pete inside the school.

"The others?" Pete says as Gerard leads him to the gym showers, propping him up against the tiled wall as he starts the hot water.

"Cleaning up," Gerard says. "They have the van, I just took your little car, they'll be fine."

"Good," Pete says, and closes his eyes. He hears another pop and the sound of a small metal ball hitting the floor. Some of his blood is beginning to dry, caked on his chest and his neck and his face where Gerard's fingers have left prints.

The kiss. The memory swims back to him suddenly, not just Gerard's mouth but the sound of his voice when he'd rushed to Pete's side. The way he'd held him. Pete doesn't think he was supposed to see that, any of it, but he saw it and felt it and Gerard is still here, walking away from the showers now to Pete. He strips Pete's blood-soaked jacket off efficiently, and Pete catches on and yanks off his shirt, wincing because the pain isn't completely gone. Gerard undresses as well and pulls Pete under the spray of water.

"You're touching me voluntarily?" Pete meant for it to be teasing, something to break up the tension in the air, but it comes out as an incredulous question. Gerard just looks at him, his eyes holding a different kind of hardness than they usually do and his mouth in a grim line.

"I saw them shoot you," Gerard says. "I heard the shots and I--I forgot, for a while. That it wouldn't kill you."

"That I'm not human," Pete says, finishing for him. "Yeah, well, I'm not and I'm gonna be fine even if it hurts like a bitch. Thanks for helping me out, but I can handle it from here." 

Gerard just looks at him, and Pete rubs at his chest where the highest bullet hit. The water at the drain is running pink, and Pete scrapes a fleck of dried blood off his skin, watches it dissolve in the water on his fingertip.

Gerard's mouth doesn't come as a surprise this time, but it's still overwhelming. Pete returns the pressure, pushes back into him and makes them stumble on the slick tiles. Gerard puts a hand out to brace them against the wall and Pete tangles his fingers in Gerard's hair, leverage to get their lips closer together. Gerard's teeth scrape his top lip and Pete feels water drip into both their mouths.

"Fuck," Gerard keeps saying softly, gasps of sound against Pete's jaw. "Fuck, fuck, Pete, fuck-"

Pete doesn't bother to answer back. He rolls them until Gerard's back is against the wall and Pete can push him up against it, can grind hard against him and suck kisses down his neck, the pale line of his shoulders.

Gerard's nails drag hard down Pete's spine. He grabs the back of Pete's head and pulls him up, away from Gerard's shoulder to kiss at his mouth and Pete moans into it, says "Hey--" and he doesn't know what else, because he chokes on water. Gerard kisses him again as he recovers, pushing them a little ways outside of the spray, and Gerard goes with him when Pete slides to the bathroom floor.

Pete rests his forehead against Gerard's and angles his mouth in, biting at Gerard's lips before he pulls back, panting. "Okay," he says, trying to pull back with the rest of himself because there's a cautionary voice in the back of his mind that sounds suspiciously like Patrick's, "okay, so this is--"

"This is happening," Gerard says, and it's simple, just like that. 

***

They've been in bed for ten hours. The sun is up. Gerard's fingertips are tracing the tattoo at Pete's neck, following the thorns across Pete's collarbone and down across his chest. 

"You got this when you were human?" he says. "Or--I assume you did. I don't actually know if..."

"If vampires can get tattooed?" Pete catches Gerard's hand, laces their fingers together. "Me neither. I got them all when I was trying to be a rock star, yeah."

Gerard snorts, still studying Pete's chest and arms. "What does it mean? This one." He taps at the thorns again.

"I... I thought it would look cool," Pete admits, blushing slightly. But that makes Gerard grin, the expression making his features look soft and almost delicate for a moment before he bends his head to kiss Pete's collarbone. He moves to kiss Pete's mouth next, bringing their bodies together to slide a thigh in between Pete's legs, rocking.

"I'm sorry," Gerard says.

"What for?" Pete is busy mapping the scars on Gerard's back with his hands. There are kind of a lot.

"For not thinking about that before. About your life before you were--this."

Pete pulls back to look at Gerard, and he knows that it's not that Gerard didn't think about it: Gerard hadn't even fully _realized_ that Pete had been human, and not that long ago, either. It hadn't even occurred to him. He really means the apology, the softness in his face gone.

"It's okay," Pete says, shrugging a little. "It's not my life anymore."

Gerard's fingers are on Pete's face, drifting over his cheek and his chin and touching his lips. Pushing inside his mouth and touching his teeth, Gerard's index finger pressing against one of his fangs, and Pete remembers Patrick doing this almost a year ago. But Gerard's exploration just feels shy and almost regretful, not horrified, and after a moment he pulls his hand back.

"Someone did this to you," Gerard says, and Pete is very familiar with the smoldering anger in his eyes, but usually it's directed at *him,* not--at someone else on his behalf. It makes Pete's ribcage clench momentarily. "Someone--attacked you and made you into this, tried to take your humanity away."

Gerard doesn't know the half of it. "Yeah. The gang leaders in Chicago--I broke away from the herd and now they hate me, almost as much as I hate them.

Gerard kisses Pete's forehead. "I'll go back with you." He kisses Pete's cheek, the corner of his mouth. "I'll go back with you someday and we'll take them. We'll take them all."

Pete's ribcage stops clenching and starts twisting, because there's no way Gerard can mean that: there's already a losing battle to fight here, Gerard wouldn't leave that, and besides, Gerard is human and William would go through him in seconds. But he almost thinks that Gerard believes he means it, that Gerard believes completely and also believes him. Believes and trusts him and Pete pushes up on his elbows to knock their teeth together and kiss Gerard as deep as he can until he's stopped thinking about anything else.

***

Pete leaves Gerard's bed reluctantly when the hunger wakes him up that night. He needs to get to the blender before it gets any worse (he's already focusing on the different heartbeats he can hear in the building), and when he crawls as quietly as possible out from under the covers Gerard stirs, but when Pete strokes a hand lightly down his arm he goes still again. Asleep.

Brian is the only one in the office when Pete walks past him to the coffee/blender table, and he frowns a little when he sees Pete but doesn't say anything. Pete ducks his head and focuses on putting the ingredients together. He would really like to drink this and slip away before anyone shows up to ask what the hell is going on with him.

He knocks the liquid back, closing his eyes as it makes his mind stop racing and the hunger calm down. It leaves him still hollow, but the feeling is manageable now. When he opens his eyes, Patrick is in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest and his glasses gleaming in a reproachful way.

Pete wipes his mouth. Oh, shit. "Morning."

"Let's talk," Patrick says, turning around and walking out without looking over his shoulder to see if Pete's following, because of course Pete is. Behind him, he hears Brian snort quietly.

Patrick waits until they're in an abandoned hallway before unleashing his full wrath. "What the _hell?_ I knew I shouldn't have believed you when you said it wouldn't happen again, but this is just--are you _deranged?_ "

Pete briefly considers pretending not to know what Patrick's talking about, but decides against it. He doesn't want Patrick to start looking for sharp pieces of wood. "Um, maybe?"

"I was trying to be nice about it last time, but I guess I have to spell it out for you," Patrick says, his jaw set. "You are a blood-sucking fiend, and he is a pathological vampire _killer._ This is not fucking Romeo and Juliet! He has dedicated his entire existence to wiping out anyone with a sharp overbite!"

"Like I haven't? Like _you_ haven't?" Pete retorts, and he doesn't need Patrick's incredulous noise to let him know that Patrick thinks that Gerard's yen for vampires is incomparable to anyone else's. Pete ignores him. "It's not like any of us have a big dating pool here. It's either vampire hunters or actual vampires, and the hunters actually want me dead _less._ "

"That makes so much sense! Wow, I can tell you've really thought this out and come to a logical conclusion based on your lack of options. Jesus, I knew you had a streak of self-loathing in you, but this--do you even know what this looks like?" Some of the anger has seeped out of Patrick's voice, but the disappointment and worry is worse. Patrick is... really upset about this, on Pete's behalf, and Pete feels guilty for not caring more.

"That's not what this is about." Pete really should be making more of an effort to argue for Gerard, to convince Patrick that this isn't the worst decision he's made since going home with William in the first place. But Pete finds that he doesn't want to try to explain Gerard to anyone; that he doesn't even know how. "He's not going to stake me in my sleep or something, come on."

Patrick just gapes. "This is a worse romantic idea than that time you slept with Andy's sister's 17-year-old girlfriend!" he splutters finally. "For fuck's _sake,_ Pete! Do I have to rattle off all of his instabilities and problems for you? Should I make an itemized list?"

"I didn't know she was seventeen at the time!" Pete protests. He opens his mouth to argue further, and shuts it again. "Can't you just be happy for me?" he finishes lamely.

"No," Patrick says, shoving past him. "I'll be watching your back instead," he calls out over his shoulder.

Pete leans against the wall and scrubs his palms over his face. "I can smell you, you know," he says, and Gerard comes out from around the corner.

"He's really concerned about you," Gerard says, a small smile on his face. His hair's still wet, combed behind his ears; he must be coming up from the showers. "It's sweet."

"He didn't mean that stuff about you," Pete lies.

Gerard's smile turns into a grin. "Yeah, he did. Come on, he's right about me in a lot of ways." Gerard touches Pete's elbow, thumb brushing over his skin. "I like killing vampires more than is probably healthy."

"Are we going to turn this into a competition? Who has a bigger hard-on for revenge? I think I could take you." 

Gerard leans his head on Pete's shoulder, tilting so that his face is pressed against Pete's neck. "It doesn't matter. You're not one of them to me." 

"Changed your mind on that awfully fast," Pete can't help muttering.

But Gerard doesn't get angry or hurt; he laughs. "I know," he says, lifting his head up again, a slightly miserable look on his face. "I don't really know what happened. I feel like you've de-clawed me or something."

"I'm holding myself back from making a fang joke right here," Pete says. "I just want you to know that."

Gerard kisses him and it's warm, dry and comforting until Pete parts his lips and it starts pulling at him, becomes urgent. Pete threads his fingers through Gerard's hair. He can smell his shampoo, he can smell fear and attraction, he can smell himself on Gerard from last night--both his sweat and his blood, from almost 24 hours ago. For once the heightened senses don't unnerve him: he wants to absorb as much of Gerard as possible, on every level, close as he can. 

Pete whines when Gerard pulls back, and leans forward to try and get his mouth again, but Gerard pushes him against a wall with a hand on his shoulder. His tongue flicks out to lick his lips, and then Gerard is going to his knees, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he looks up at Pete.

"Someone could come around the corner at any minute," Pete says, even though his hips are already tilting forward, betraying his good sense.

"Most of them are out, and Patrick isn't going to be coming back this way anytime soon," Gerard says, unbuckling Pete's belt and getting his pants down. His teeth flash white in a smile when he pulls Pete's cock out, half-hard before Gerard leans down and sucks with his eyes closed.

Pete sucks breaths in and presses his palms flat against the wall, trying to keep the noise buried in his throat as Gerard kisses and licks before going down again, as determined in this as he is in everything else. Gerard is--he's beautiful, his lips around Pete's cock and his eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks and the expression on his face. His hands are on Pete's hips and sides, rubbing occasionally at his skin, and Pete reaches down to touch Gerard's fingers, catch his hand and hold it. He lets a gasp out when Gerard goes down far enough that he chokes before coming back up, pulling off to breathe and look up.

"You," Pete says, feeling exceptionally stupid. "Uh, fuck."

Gerard laughs again and Pete is filled with the sudden urge to have Gerard laugh like that against Pete's stomach, giggle into Pete's bellybutton. He concentrates on the idea, wanting to remember it for later, as Gerard mouths the head and slides up and down the shaft, bringing Pete closer to the edge until he slips over it, hips thrust up and banging the back of his head against the wall, groaning loud now.

"I usually don't do that before I've had coffee," Gerard says, leaning back. "You've got me all twisted up and backwards."

Pete reaches out a hand to pull Gerard up before bothering to get his pants back on. "It's mutual," is all he can manage before kissing Gerard again and tasting himself there.

***

Brian got a lead on the actual location of the gang of vampire drop-outs in late December, but they decided against making a move on them immediately. They've been watching the gang for weeks instead, observing them in shifts, and it's one of the most boring projects Pete's ever been involved in, but then one of them falls into their lap.

Bob had been out in the back of the school smoking when one of the vampires--Pete has to assume one of the more exceptionally stupid ones, they hadn't all seemed like such morons from everything he's seen--attacked him. Gerard had been on his way outside to join him smoking, and the two of them easily overpowered him, knocking him out and dragging him inside.

He's now chained to a chair in the main office, dried blood on his face from where they hit him. He's the skinniest thing Pete has ever seen, he's got several days' growth of beard and his brown hair is long and matted. 

None of them expected to have to interrogate one of the gang so immediately. "I don't suppose anyone here has ever, um, interrogated a vampire for information before?" Patrick says, looking around at all of them with with skepticism on his face.

"Not really, no," Brian says, rubbing his hands over his face and touching the back of his neck. "Fuck, I'm not even sure exactly what I need to know from him." 

"Just don't let _him_ know that while we're trying to get shit from him," Gerard snaps. Gerard's cheeks are flushed; Pete's pretty sure he'd only been on his second drink, maybe third, while going out for that smoke break. 

Gerard looks around at all of them. "Here's how it's going to work: Brian will ask the questions, he knows what he needs. I'll give the order if we need to take extreme measures to make us tell him anything; Bob will be the one to actually do it." Gerard meets Bob's eyes to confirm this, and Bob nods. "Anyone who has a problem with this should not be in the room when we start talking to him."

No one contradicts Gerard, and they're all in the room when Andy wakes the vampire up, spraying water in its face. It starts and snarls, teeth out and vicious, jerking its body around so hard trying to get free of its chains that Pete thinks he might break something.

"We know what your name is," Brian says. "We've been watching you. It's Graham, right?"

Brian must be the only one of them who's studied the gang hard enough to know that--Pete had no idea who it was. Graham stares at Brian for half a second before laughing. 

"My lunch _studied_ me! I feel flattered, wow, that's just." He snaps his teeth. "Come a little closer and I'll tell you my last name too."

"You really think you're going to eat us for lunch?" Frank asks, amused. "You're the one tied to the chair."

The vampire looks over at Frank but doesn't retort; he just looks Frank up and down, thirsty gaze settling on Frank's neck.

"We're working against Gabe and Maja," Brian continues. "We know you ran from them. We could, potentially, be on the same side."

Brian stops talking to wait for Graham's laughter to die down. "And if you don't cooperate, we'll torture you until you will," Brian says then, shrugging.

"I am clearly quaking in my boots," Graham says. "You really thought any vampire might give anything to a band of humans? How fucking stupid are you?"

"You're the one that wandered in here," Frank says, and the vampire stares at his neck again. Frank shows no reaction.

"I was hungry," Graham says, his eyes still on Frank's aorta. "I'm not telling you a god damn thing until I get someone to eat." 

"Here," Patrick says, pushing a glass of the blend in his face. The vampire looks like he's being asked to drink urine.

"I don't need a _smoothie_ , fatso," he snarls, but Patrick is already forcing the drink down his throat, ignoring Graham's indignant gurgling sounds.

"That's all you're gonna get, so I hope it does the trick," Gerard says, his arms still crossed over his chest. The vampire licks spilled liquid from his lips, still clearly pissed, but Pete is pretty sure there's a clearer, calmer look in his eye.

"Now you're going to talk," Frank says, smiling sweetly and toying with a small stake in one hand.

"If you think I'm telling you jack shit, you clearly don't know Gabe at all, and you also think I'm a moron," Graham says. "You guys are going to kill me, right? If for some reason I don't die here and word gets out that I told Gerard Way _anything_ about Gabe and Maja, I'm worse than dead."

"'Worse than dead?' Be more of a cliche, why don't you," Joe says.

"We're not going to kill you," Brian says. "We're working to get more of your kind on our side--"

Graham howls with laughter, shaking his restraints. "Are you _fucking_ \--"

"--which is how we got him on our side," Brian continues calmly, jabbing his thumb at Pete. "We expected you to be unwilling, of course, but we can promise you protection from Gabe and Maja and a way to live without feeding on humans."

Graham stops laughing, and Pete shifts uneasily. No vampire is going to view a life without human blood as a good thing, and he didn't know Brian was going to try this tactic. 

"If you think any real vampire would willingly work with humans, even against Gabe, you're worse than just meat," he says coldly, his lips drawn back against his teeth. Pete hears a growl in his chest that he wasn't aware of, and the vampire switches its gaze from Brian to him, the look of revulsion just getting more intense.

"But you're not a real vampire," Frank says, sweet smile still in place. "You're exiled, aren't you? And Gabe's been picking off your merry little band one by one. He got your little girlfriend just last week, right?"

Graham's eyes go wide, either at the memory or at the knowledge that they've been watching him that closely. "Fuck you--" but his voice is weaker now, shaky.

"We can offer you and your friends protection," Brian says again firmly, and Pete sees Gerard's shoulders stiffen. "If you just help us right now. We just need information, and we know that you have it, and we'll do what we have to to get it from you."

Some of the vampire's bravado returns, and he laughs. "Oh man, now I'm _terrified._ You think anything you can do to me will be worse than what Gabe's already done? Hell, you think you can _protect me?_ "

"We've protected him," Ray says, nodding at Pete, and Pete gives Graham a little wave, demonstrating his alive-ness.

"Big deal," Graham says, rolling his eyes. "The only reason he's alive--that any of you are alive--is because Gabe and Maja don't give enough of a shit to make an effort of destroying you. You're just not important enough."

"Really?" Pete says. "You haven't heard them talk about that motherfucking traitor from Chicago? Haven't overheard their revenge schemes for those cocksuckers that torched Maja last year?"

Pete has no idea if Gabe has talked about him at all, but the gamble pays off: Graham stares, and Pete sees recognition dawn in his eyes, see him realize who Pete is.

"But you've been a traitor from the start," he says after a moment, pulling himself together. "You think I'm naive enough to believe that you people will let me live when I've been murdering the rest of your species for a decade?"

"Well, it looks like he's not going to talk willingly," Frank says, faking disappointment, and nods at Bob, who steps out from behind the vampire's chair to press a hot poker to his thigh, burning through his clothes and against his skin only inches away from his crotch. 

Gerard waves Bob away when Graham has screamed for a bit. "We don't do things fancy here, no complicated methods of torture," he says. "But you guys aren't big fans of fire, am I right?"

"Blow me," Graham offers through gritted teeth.

"Only if you play nice," Frank says, and Bob scowls at him.

"You're stuck with us for a while no matter what you decide," Gerard says, shrugging. "We'll give you the day to think it over."

Patrick makes him drink another glass of the blend and they leave, Ray staying to stand guard. When they come back that night, Graham doesn't look like he's slept at all, and he keeps licking his teeth, compulsively. Patrick makes him drink again.

"You've had some time to think, so you've probably realized that if we let you go right now or you escape, it's still a death sentence because it'll be assumed that you talked," Brian says. "Your own gang will probably get you even before Gabe does. Literally the _only_ option right now that won't end in your death is if you give us information and let us provide you with sanctuary."

There's utter hatred in every line of Graham's face as he stares at Brian. 

"Bob, burn his neck," Gerard says, and the vampire screams as Bob presses the poker against his throat, beneath his jaw.

"Fuck!" he yells, voice high and strangled as his skin smokes. "I'll fucking talk, I'll fucking--" Bob doesn't remove the poker until Gerard gives him a nod.

"Okay," Brian says, crouching down until he's eye level with Graham, his hands steepled beneath his chin. "Here's what we want to know."

"How much protection did Gabe usually have around him? Did he go around with any kind of bodyguard, or several, or is he usually by himself?"

"He's usually surrounded when he's at home," Graham says, shrugging. "But that's just because he likes the company. When he goes out he usually has a couple of lowlies with him to be cannon fodder if they get into any trouble." His lip curls in hatred.

"And Maja?"

"She goes everywhere with Astrid, some Swedish bitch she brought over with her. Astrid is a bodyguard, I guess, or they're attached at the hip for some other reason."

"So Gabe goes out with others to act as cannon fodder," Brian muses. "Why? What kind of trouble might he run into? What's he worried about?"

"Not you, in case you're wondering," Graham scoffs. "There are always fights among us, there's always someone trying to take Gabe down. He's got at least three or four factions going for his head by this point."

"Tell me everything you know about each of these factions and why they want Gabe." Brian smiles when the vampire glares and hisses.

Pete loses track of the information flow fairly soon into it; he hasn't been paying nearly as much attention to the strategic details and complications that Brian has been obsessing over as he should be, because he's been distracted by Gerard. He glances over at Gerard as Graham is talking, and Gerard's eyes are fixed on him, unwavering. Occasionally he shifts his weight, or uncrosses his arms and crosses them again. 

"Thank you," Brian says, as Patrick feeds the vampire another glass of the blend. Brian turns to look at the rest of them, his eyes shining. "This is--fuck. We can do something with this." He reaches up to rub the back of his neck, shaking his head slightly and muttering to himself.

"You gonna let me up now?" Graham says, his voice bitter. His head is hanging down but Pete can see self-hatred in the line of his shoulders. He's already thinking traitor to himself.

"Sure," Gerard says, stepping forward. Pete can see the movement half a second before it happens, he yells and moves to try and stop it but Gerard has already buried a stake in Graham's chest. Graham's scream only lasts a second before it chokes off, and he convulses twice before he stills.

Everyone starts talking at once. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Patrick yells, throwing the empty glass to the side, his face contorted with rage. "You just--" as Joe says "What the fuck?" staring at the body with his eyes wide, as Frank says "Thanks, Gerard--"

Pete grabs Gerard's arm, wrenching it away from the body and twisting his wrist until Gerard yells and drops the stake, turning furiously towards Pete. 

"You were going to do that all along," Pete says, staring at Gerard. "All of that stuff Brian said, that was bullshit from the beginning." When Pete looks over at Brian, Brian looks sad and tired, but not surprised.

"You shouldn't have done that," Patrick says, livid. "We could have used him, we could have found out more, you didn't have to--"

"You're fucking wrong, of course we had to," Gerard says. The rest of his team is quiet, they all look uncomfortable, but none of them contradict him. They agree, they fucking agree, they don't see anything wrong with Gerard disposing of Graham the second they got what they needed. 

"I can't believe you," Pete hears himself saying. "I can't believe you, I can't believe the way you did that, I can't believe--"

"What did you think was going to happen?" Gerard says, looking nowhere but at Pete's face. "That we really would keep him? _Rehabilitate_ him? Magically turn him good with Patrick's special potion? He's not a person, he's a disease, he's _one of them._ "

Pete can see Gerard regret what he's saying the second the words leave his mouth, but he doesn't care. He lets go of Gerard's arm and turns away and walks out of the office, jerking violently away when Gerard tries to catch his hand.

"I didn't--" Gerard says when he catches up to Pete, vainly trying to grab his shoulder again. "I didn't mean you, I didn't--"

"Fuck off," Pete says. "I heard what you said. The way you think."

"You have to believe me," Gerard says, succeeding in getting himself in front of Pete and blocking his path with his hands on his hips, stubborn. "You're right, okay, you're right about the way I think. I can't--I'm not going to deny that, maybe it _is_ fucked up. But you're not part of that, Pete, you have to believe me, you're not--" he shuts his mouth, his eyes beseeching and remorseful.

"I'm an exception?" Pete says. "Great. Fantastic. You've managed to think of me as something remotely human, that's awesome."

"That's not it at all," Gerard says miserably. "I killed that vampire--him, Graham--I killed him because it had to be done. He's the enemy, he is _not you._ You don't understand because you haven't been here, you haven't seen--"

"Don't you tell me that I haven't seen how evil they are or some bullshit like that, don't you _fucking_ \--"

"You hate a few of them!" Gerard yells back. "You want revenge on a specific few that did you wrong across the country, you want them personally, you don't understand the big picture! You weren't here when they took over everything in a matter of months, they didn't destroy your home, your city, your family--"

Gerard stops as sudden as if someone pressed mute, his mouth clicking shut. He looks like he's not even breathing. 

"I know what happened to your brother," Pete says after a few moments. "But it's warped you, Gerard, you can't. That was--that was inhuman, what you just did."

Gerard glances at Pete and then away. "Probably," he says with a shrug. "But I'm in love with you, for what that's worth."

Pete leans back against the wall, the wind knocked out of him. Gerard is still looking away, and the righteous anger seems to have drained away, leaving him looking small and sad.

"I love you, too," Pete manages. "So it's worth. It's worth a lot."

"Fuck," Gerard mutters, but he turns back around to look at Pete, bracing a hand on the wall behind him and leaning in close. "I'm sorry that I'm so fucked. That this is the way it is."

"I'm not," Pete says. "I'm not sorry. I'll take this and you over anything else." 

Gerard laughs a little bit before kissing Pete, a soft quick kiss on the lips like he's afraid Pete's still mad. Pete knows that he should be, but he pulls Gerard in closer and has already mostly forgotten.

***

"Stop fussing," Gerard says, catching Pete's hand when he tries again to examine the purpling bruises spread across Gerard's ribs. "I told you, it's fine."

"You got thrown into a _wall,_ " Pete says. "You should at least have this taped up."

"My ribs are fine. It looks a lot worse than it is-- _really,_ " Gerard insists when Pete snorts. "I'm not made of glass."

"You're a human fighting things that aren't," Pete says. "You might as well be."

Gerard laughs and rolls them until he's on top of Pete, his legs straddling Pete's waist. "I've been doing this for years longer than you have, rookie," he says, dropping kisses along Pete's jaw, clearly trying to remind him that they're in bed. "Don't worry about *me.*"

"You've come thisclose to dying, like, eight times just since I've known you," Pete says, scowling. "You act like it'll never happen, but your body won't just bounce back from everything the way mine will."

"I expect it to happen every time I wake up, actually," Gerard says, serious. Pete stares at him, feeling something hot and knotted try to crawl up his throat, before Gerard's lips twitch and he cracks up, laughing.

"Oh, _fuck_ you," Pete says, rolling his eyes and shoving him. "Fuck you, Obi-Wan."

"Sorry," Gerard says, still laughing. "Pete, come on, I know the risks. Better than you do, probably, and don't pretend that you're invincible and the only one having to worry."

Pete rolls on top of him. "I am invincible. I'm fucking immortal, bitch." He leans down to bite lightly at Gerard's jaw, rubbing his nose in Gerard's hair.

"Uh-huh," Gerard says. "A splinter in the right place could kill you, man."

"Please tell me you don't spend too much time thinking about that, you morbid little shit," Pete says, groaning.

"I'm not thinking about it right now," Gerard says, his hands sliding up Pete's shirt and pressing against Pete's nipples, and Pete stops thinking about it, too.

Afterwards, Pete stretches out on his back, hands above his head, knuckles resting against the wall. Gerard is sitting up, taking deep drags from his cigarette and resting his fingers in Pete's hair.

"You're a vampire, and you're good," Gerard says suddenly. "I mean, you have morals, you manage to be a better human being than I do most of the time." He breathes smoke out his nostrils and looks at Pete, Pete looking quizzically back.

"Uh, yeah," Pete says when Gerard doesn't elaborate. "That's me. Have you... just now realized this?"

Gerard inhales deeply, lips wrapping tight around the cigarette. "No, but. I mean. If you can manage to be this good, then that means it's possible. That means others can. Mikey could've, maybe."

Pete sits up. Gerard has put out his cigarette and isn't looking at him. "When your brother woke up as a vampire, was he--did he seem evil? Was he killing people, or trying to?"

"There was this little girl that used to hang out in our neighborhood, I think she had a--a mental disability of some kind," Gerard says, his face darkening. "Yeah, he was."

"Then no, he couldn't have," Pete says, swallowing the bitter taste of the words. "Most vampires, when they wake up they're a new person. They don't remember who they were before. It's like what you said when you met me: it's automatic, it's like flipping a switch. They're just predators, nothing more."

"But you--" 

"I'm unnatural, yeah," Pete says. "Sometimes the ones that remember their humanity like me come along. They usually die pretty quick, either by suicide or getting picked off by other vampires. But if Mikey was already--he wasn't like me."

Gerard makes a choked sound that almost sounds like a laugh, and stubs out his cigarette. "But there could've been a chance. The stuff you drink, I could have found that, I could have kept him from hurting people. Something."

Pete doesn't know what to say, so he stays quiet. After a moment, Gerard turns to look at him.

"It happened to him before most people around here even knew vampires existed," he says. "When they were still trying to stay underground. We didn't realize what it was that killed him, we thought it was just--just a random stabbing. That maybe he'd gotten involved with the wrong people."

Pete rests his head on Gerard's shoulder and listens.

"His body disappeared before the funeral. We thought it was, like--some kind of fucked-up body-snatching thing, I don't even know. Mom and Dad were so fucking upset, they couldn't even deal, Helena was the one talking to the police, getting an investigation going. I just took off with Frank, driving around town, it was this--this complete accident that we saw him, walking around."

Gerard reaches for his pack of cigarettes, fishing clumsily for another one and lighting it, taking a deep drag. Pete wants to tell him that he doesn't have to talk about this, he has nothing to confess, but he doesn't think it'll do any good.

"He was with a few others, and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't the first time we'd seen vampires, Frank and I. Frank had been attacked by them in a group of his friends, he escaped somehow, he's never talked to me about that. So we--we knew what they are, a little bit about how to fight them.

"It was just Frankie and me, none of the others were there. We got him cornered in this--this random fucking shed on the corner of some field--I was the one who lit the fire, I was the one--"

"Quiet," Pete murmurs when Gerard doesn't go on. He takes the cigarette out of his hand and puts it out, then kisses Gerard's mouth. 

"You did the right thing," he says. "You did what you had to."

"Fuck you," Gerard says, wiping angrily at his eyes. "It wasn't the right thing. It's not the right thing. It could have been different."

Pete rubs his thumb along Gerard's jaw and presses his lips together. "Thanks for telling me," he says, finally. Gerard's mouth twists.

***

The day before Valentine's Day, Frank gets sick. Pete barely notices at first, it's just Frank coughing a little as the two of them were on their way back to their patrol, and it's winter. Pete spent most of last January with a hacking cough, and he finds that he keeps expecting his body to catch something this year, but of course, well. That's not going to happen.

But when they get back to the school and meet Bob and Frank sneezes, Bob's smile immediately disappears. "Frank," he says.

"It's nothing!"

"Frankie. Come on, fuck, are you serious?" Bob sounds really worried, and he's squeezing Frank's shoulder. Frank looks pissed.

"Let's get you to Brian, we should take your temperature," Bob says, pulling on Frank's arm and ignoring his defiant "I'm fine!"s. 

They find that Frank has a temperature of 101 and rising. Gerard goes out on a quest for tea and soup and tylenol, Brian and Bob and Ray stand talking with their heads close together, and Frank sits with a blanket around his shoulder and the thermometer still sticking out of his mouth, looking mutinous.

"Frank doesn't really get colds," Ray explains when Pete asks why they're all so serious about this. "He gets, like."

"Pneumonia," Bob says, scowling. "I'll bet you anything it's the pneumonia coming back."

"Walking pneumonia!" Frank says indignantly before getting taken over by a coughing fit. "Walking pneumonia, which means I don't need bed rest or anything."

"Go to hell," Bob says. "You've probably had that cough for a few days and just haven't told anyone."

"I started coughing this morning," Frank says. "Look, it's not like I _tried_ to get sick, okay?"

"Whatever," Bob says, walking out of the office and pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket without looking at Frank.

"Frank almost died the last time he had pneumonia," Brian mutters to Pete, explaining. 

Gerard is just as concerned as Bob, and they all seem to be treating Frank's illness like it's as much of a threat to his life as vampires. The next day, when Frank is too weak to stand up for more than ten minutes at a time, Pete can see why.

"You've got to keep drinking your fluids!" Bob says, voice high when Frank snaps at him, and Gerard touches Pete's elbow and nods his head towards the door. Neither Frank nor Bob, both their voices rising, notice when Pete and Gerard leave.

"Frank will be fine," Gerard says when they get outside, stomping his feet in the cold. Pete can see his breath. "Frank has the shittiest immune system known to man, but he's a stubborn fuck. Bob freaks out like this _every_ time, though.

"And I guess it's pretty shitty timing this year, too," Gerard adds, looking out at the soccer field. "On a holiday, and all."

It takes Pete a second to remember, and he blinks. "Oh. Right."

Gerard smiles, and Pete looks out at the field as well. "I didn't get you flowers," Gerard says.

"What about chocolate?"

"No chocolate, either."

"You suck," Pete says, taking Gerard's hand. Gerard is wearing fuzzy winter gloves, the black kind with bones on them. He's got a scarf on, too.

"You're not cold at all?" Gerard says, looking at Pete. 

Pete just has his hoodie. "Nope. I never get all that cold."

"Of course not, right," Gerard says, but he's still smiling. He squeezes Pete's hand.

For a while Frankie gets pretty bad, but he passes through the worst part of the pneumonia and gets better, to everyone's giant relief. Bob and Brian both forbid him to get up out of bed for at least a week after the illness has passed. 

Pete waits for Brian and Gerard to announce what they're going to do with Graham's information, some kind of plan of action or brilliant way to get at Gabe at last, but that seems to have been put on the backburner. They're kept on their toes by more drive-bys, which Maja's people in particular seem really fond of, surprising them all over town. Gerard gets grazed by bullets twice, once on his arm and once, terrifyingly, on the back of his head. 

"Relax," Gerard says, rolling his eyes at Pete, face down while Brian cleans the wound. "It's like, a scratch. I don't even need stitches."

"Go to hell," Pete says, watching Brian's fingers. "A fucking scratch. You came a hair away from getting shot in the head."

Gerard just shrugs, and Pete hates him for a moment. 

***

Pete wakes up feeling good. He's awake immediately, eyes snapping open and his mind perfectly clear, and he's hungry.

Heartbeat and blood. Gerard, beside him and he moves, rolling easily to pin the human and grab its hair, push its head back and the neck right there, beat beat beat--

His teeth graze skin and then it moves, jerks and yells and it's pushing at him, prey trying to escape, no he wants he needs. Right _there_ if he could just taste it, take it.

He snarls and pushes down, snaps in but Gerard is fighting, lashing out and twisting his head away and knee in his gut, knocking the wind out of him and pushing him off. Pete fights and grabs and _wants_ but Gerard is strong, almost as strong as him and suddenly he can't see, can't--sheet over his eyes--

A bedsheet yanked over his head and by the time he untangles himself Gerard is on him, fists to his jaw and stomach so fast that he stumbles back, can't fight back enough, can't concentrate it was _right there,_ he's _so hungry_ \--

Gerard is behind him, Pete tries to turn around but Gerard has him, his arms yanked back, hurting his shoulders, and Pete can hear smell taste his heartbeat it's so close. So. His head twists and his teeth snap but he can't get him, he's hungry, he's shaking.

"Fuck, fuck, _no,_ " he hears behind him and he screams with hunger. "No, fuck--"

He hears running footsteps and another heartbeat and human smell and Patrick appears in the doorway, flushed all blood in his face, "Hey! Hey, let him go, what are you--"

Patrick takes a step forward and Pete lunges, ecstatic because he can already taste the veins already feel flesh tearing in his teeth it's so _close_ , and his prey won't get away this time it's feebly stumbling back--

He's yanked backwards and he feels his shoulder pop, dislocating, and the pain distracts a second from the hunger. Gerard still has him, shaking him hard now, and Pete twists and yells. He's _starving._

"Oh my god," Patrick says, and his veins are blue beneath his skin. Pete can _see_ the big one in his throat, the beating is so loud in his head, and he sobs a little as he strains. 

"What did you do to him?" Patrick says, and Pete can smell the anger on him as he looks at Gerard.

"Fucking nothing," Gerard spits, yanking Pete back again as Pete struggles. "When I woke up he was about to bite my _neck._ "

Two others run into the room, Frank and Bob, they would both taste _so good._ "What the *fuck?*" says Frank and then Brian is there, and Andy and Pete and he can smell hear them all and there's so much blood in the room that Pete feels like he's dissolving, knows he'll die if he can't have any of them right now, now, and Gerard's hand wraps around his throat, squeezes when he yells again.

"If someone could _help me_ that would be awesome!" Gerard yells. "We need to get him tied up or-- _fuck!_ " Pete manages to twist his head down enough and he can smell blood right there in Gerard's finger and it spurts into his mouth, wonderful, exactly what he needs. The relief of it, of even just a tiny taste, almost makes him cry.

Gerard lets go and then they're all on him, all this blood and Pete twists and snarls trying to get at any of them but they're all holding him down, slamming him to the ground this time, someone holding his face to the floor. He can smell dirt and blood and dead skin particles and blood and he licks his lips again and again, trying to get it all.

"Shit," Gerard says, panting, and Frank says, "Christ, he didn't bite it _off_ , did he?"

"We need to figure out what this is," one of them, Brian, says and Frank feels his face pressed harder against the floor. "Figure out why the hell this is happening, he can't have just suddenly--can he?"

"No!" Gerard says, as Patrick says "Fuck you, _no_ , he's not suddenly anything, he's still himself, okay? _Fuck_ you."

"Then what the hell's going on?" Bob says, Bob, Bob is the one holding his face down. Pete licks his lips again, even though he can barely taste the blood there and he _needs more._

"Someone should get that stuff he drinks," Ray says, and Pete hears someone run out of the room--Andy, Andy is the one he can't smell anymore, the others are all still here, still available. He licks his lips and sucks at the air and his vision is blurring. There's so much human blood right here, so much and he can't.

"Did anything happen to him last night?" Brian is saying. "Did he--do or say anything, anything unusual?"

"Nothing. _Nothing,_ Brian, stop looking at me like that! Yesterday was completely normal."

"Then is there something about today?" Brian says. "Has he mentioned anything about today? Gerard, Patrick--"

"Today," Joe says suddenly. "Shit, I remember, today's the last day of February."

"And?" Gerard says at the same time that Patrick says "Oh, fuck. Oh my god."

"He disappeared a year ago today," Joe says. "I mean, he went off with William. That must have--it must have been when he got bit. It's been a year."

"And?" says Bob. "Is this him celebrating the anniversary or something? Gerard, why didn't you just get him flowers?"

Running footsteps another heartbeat and Andy's back, and Pete can smell something unfamiliar. "Here," Andy says, and then Pete feels someone yank him up to a sitting position, and before he can struggle there's liquid being poured, forced down his throat. He chokes and tries to turn away, but they're holding his head in place. 

"Did it work?" someone says, Joe, and they're all staring at Pete. The hunger has faded slightly, enough that he isn't screaming with it, but it's still. There's so much blood in this room. 

The hold on his shoulders loosens slightly and he lunges forward, almost escapes before he's thrown back to the ground. A whimper catches in his throat and he feels something cold, metal, click around both his wrists.

"Patrick, you've still got your books, right?" Brian says. 

"Yeah, I--yeah."

"Then come on. Let's put our heads together and figure out what this is about."

"Someone should--" Ray says, and Gerard says "I'll stay here with him. I'll take care of it if he gets loose."

"Not just you," Bob says, his fingers clamped down on Pete's neck. Pete can smell his sweat, he wants-- "There needs to be more than one person here, what if he overpowers you?"

"The rest of you can stay out in the hall in case he gets past me," Gerard says. "Or if you hear us fighting."

"Fuck that," Bob says. "We need to be in here--"

"He's fucking naked, Bob!" Gerard yells. "Can you just--just. Give us some privacy."

Bob doesn't move. "You'll--"

"I'll do whatever I have to. You don't have to ask."

Pete twists his hands inside the metal, and it hurts, digs into his skin. He's yanked suddenly to his feet, and he struggles but there are four humans holding him, dragging him to radiator, chaining him there, he's trapped--

The others leave, so many heartbeats, and it's just Gerard across the room. Pete can smell him, still almost taste him, he remembers perfectly the feel of Gerard's skin almost against his lips, his teeth. He stares at the vein there, the one he almost had.

Gerard sits in a chair with a stake in his lap, staring right back. "You're going to bite me if I try and put pants on you, right?"

Pete stares.

"Fuck," Gerard says. "Fuck, Pete, fuck." He leans his elbows on his knees and buries his face in his arms, the movement sudden and muffled. Pete moves, tries to yank and twist away, and Gerard is immediately standing there, wooden stake at Pete's chest.

"Don't," Gerard says through clenched teeth. Pete bares his fangs, but he knows what wood means, he knows. He doesn't move.

***

"And if that mocking bird don't sing," William croons, his fingers brushing Pete's hair back from his face. "Daddy's gonna buy you a diamond ring. And if that diamond ring turns brass...."

Pete closes his eyes, turns into the touch, and listens. William has such a nice voice; it's lovely, it's soothing, and Pete wants to stay here and lie in his arms and listen forever.

"Ooooh, you make me live!" There's another voice, another pair of hands, drowning out William's, singing Queen. "Whatever this world can give to me, it's yoooou, you're all I see!"

William snarls and his voice turns nasty, a shriek, pushing Gerard away and off a ledge. "And if that looking glass gets broke," he sings, louder and more shrill, drowning out You're My Best Friend. "Daddy's gonna buy you a billy goat! And if that billy goat won't pull--"

Gerard grabs hold of Pete before he falls, dragging Pete out of William's lap, and Pete cries out because no, he doesn't want--

Pete wakes up slowly, groggily, like he's clawing his way up through fog and molasses. His eyes blink open and they feel gummy; there's a slightly nauseous feeling in his stomach and his head hurts.

He tries to move, but his hands are tied--tied to a radiator?

"Pete?" 

Gerard is across the room, Pete can hear his heart and the caution in his voice and smell the fear on him, and he remembers what happened last night.

"Oh my god," he says, gagging, he wants to throw up, he wants to heave up his whole insides. 

"You're back?" Gerard asks, his voice still hard.

"Fuck," Pete says. "Fuck, fuck, I can't believe that happened, I can't believe I." He almost killed Gerard. He _almost killed Gerard and Patrick._

Gerard is crossing the room and Pete scrambles back away from him as much as he can, he has to keep away, he can't let Gerard, "Stay away--"

"Here," Gerard says, and there's a large glass of the blend Pete needs in his hand. He puts it to Pete's lips and Pete drinks, tips the whole thing back, tries to drown himself in it.

"Thank you," Pete says, his voice dull. "Now get the fuck away from me."

"You're back to yourself," Gerard says. "You're back to normal--"

"Get _away_ ," Pete snarls, pushing himself away from Gerard's hands. "I'm not safe! Get--go back across the room, get someone else in here to stand guard!"

"Shut up," Gerard says calmly. "You've clearly come back to yourself and are no longer a danger, so I'm not going to keep you chained up like some rabid dog."

"No--" Pete tries to kick Gerard away when Gerard gets the key out, but Gerard unlocks the manacles and drags Pete up to his feet. Pete stumbles back, covers his face, drags his hands through his hair. He _is_ back, back to himself, he's not--he's not whatever the _fuck_ that was that went through him yesterday, or maybe that was really him and this is an act--

"Patrick and Brian figured it out," Gerard says. "It's a physiological trigger that takes vampires back to their base instincts on the anniversary of when they were born---born as vampires, I mean. It's mostly unknown because most vampires _are_ little more than their most base instincts--they might register feeling a little extra vicious or hungry, but that's it."

Pete crouches, drops his head in between his knees and covers his face. It's temporary. "It's temporary?"

"Temporary and nothing you could possibly control, yes. You had no way of knowing this would happen--"

"I'm going to lock myself back up," Pete says, springing to his feet. "I'm not taking the risk."

"Come on, don't be ridiculous," Gerard says with a frown. "The others all agreed that I should immediately let you free if you were back to yourself when you woke up, you're not a danger anymore--"

"No," Pete says, shaking his head. "That's such a lie--"

"You feel fine, don't you? Normal? Like yourself?"

"That's not the point," Pete says. "Give me the cuffs." 

"No," Gerard says. He tosses them across the room to clatter against the wall, and grabs Pete's arm when Pete goes to pick them up. Gerard pulls him in roughly, kissing Pete's mouth, and grabbing his other shoulder, holding him.

"Mmph--" Pete pulls away, stumbling back. "Gerard, I can't, I _have to_."

"I'm not worried," Gerard says firmly, sliding a hand through Pete's hair and kissing his lips again, softly this time, over and over. 

"That was the most terrified I've ever been last night," he says, voice quiet. "I thought I'd lost who you are, lost you for good."

"I tried to kill you," Pete mumbles back. "I can't let that happen again. Can't take the risk."

"It won't happen again!" His kisses are fiercer now, lingering, and he's walking them both back towards the bed. "This isn't a risk, I'm not afraid right now, we're okay, we're fine--"

"No--Gerard--" Pete tries to say, but Gerard cuts off every word with his mouth and they tumble onto the mattress on the floor, Gerard running his hands all over Pete's body, kissing his way down Pete's face. 

"Want you," Gerard murmurs. "I want this now, I need to just--"

"Fuck," Pete says, grabbing Gerard's hand and stopping its wanderings. "No, Gerard--listen--"

" _Please,_ " Gerard says, raw anguish in his voice and he kisses Pete's neck--

"No!" Pete yells and shoves Gerard away, uses all his strength and Gerard is thrown into the wall with a crash. "You can't fuck this out of me!"

Gerard stares at him, hair in his face, mouth open. He looks stunned.

"I'm a fucking monster!" Pete yells, up on his knees and furious. "That's what I showed you last night, you said it, those are my _base instincts._ That's what I am, the rest of this is just, just icing, just pretty decorations on the surface."

"I don't believe that," Gerard says, getting to his feet and shaking his head. "That isn't true."

"It is and you know it. It's nothing you can change, Gerard. You can't fuck this out of me or make it go away with 'I love you's." Pete can hear the harshness of his own voice, hear how loud he's getting and he doesn't stop. "I remember everything I felt yesterday! I remember wanting to _eat you_ , I remember that you were nothing to me but a fucking meal! Why the fuck didn't you kill me the second I woke up?!"

"Why didn't I--" Gerard stops, horrified, his jaw working.

"You sleep with a fucking stake under your pillow!" Pete roars. "I thought I could trust you, I thought you could kill me, I wish you fucking had!"

Gerard steps back like Pete's words were a whip in the air, lashing out across his skin. He stares. Pete stares back, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl, daring Gerard to say anything that could possibly prove Pete wrong.

"Is that all this is for you?" Gerard says, quietly, finally. "Some kind of--suicide wish?"

"No," Pete says immediately, feeling all his anger drain away and leaving him weak. "No. Of course not. I."

Gerard keeps staring and doesn't take a step closer.

Pete scrubs his palms over his face. He wishes he'd never woken up. "It's not," he says again, muffled through his hands. "I just--I remember what that was like, wanting to kill you. If something had happened, if I--"

"Nothing happened," Gerard says. "I fought you off."

"But what if you can't next time?" Pete says, taking his hands away to glare at Gerard. "You said you were terrified of losing me, well. What if I woke up this morning and found that I'd lost you because I'd killed you? Or Patrick, or Joe, or any of us. I couldn't live with that, I can't live with the possibility of that."

Gerard looks at him, then crosses to the mattress and kneels in front of Pete, taking his hand. "I will do whatever I have to to protect others from you if it ever comes to that."

"And what about yourself?" Pete says, scowling.

"And to protect myself from you," Gerard adds, his mouth in a tight line. "I promise, okay? I won't ever let you hurt anyone."

Pete swallows hard. "Thank you," he says, because anything else would seem--he has no idea what else he'd say.

"Fuck you for making me promise it," Gerard says, glaring. "Is this the reason you're in my bed every night, because I sleep with a stake under my pillow?"

Pete makes himself meet Gerard's eyes. "Part of it, maybe. I don't know."

Gerard laughs, and it isn't a nice sound. "Well, then you're out of luck. Because what happened yesterday isn't ever going to happen again, and I'm never going to have to make good on my promise."

Pete feels his heart pull. "I hope not. Gerard--I'm sorry."

Gerard is already shaking his head. "Forget it. It's not the only reason, right? Just--fuck, just give me that."

"I love you," Pete says. "No, it's not the only reason." He squeezes Gerard's hand and pulls him in, kisses Gerard's lips briefly before resting his head on Gerard's shoulder.

Gerard's hand wraps around his back, warm against his spine. "Good," Gerard says, kissing the back and side of Pete's neck. "Good."


End file.
